54 



THE CENTRAL PROVINCE 



nearly every cave I visited seemed in this way to be at the base of a 

 precipice and at the head of a stream valley, and the number of caves 

 thus screened by a waterfall was remarkable. Joseph Thomson inclined 

 to the belief that the caves were the work of a vanished race, and that 

 they were made in the search for minerals or precious stones. Certainly 

 the negroes of Nandi stock now making use of these caverns have, or 

 their forefathers have, enlarged them here and there by ])icking at the 

 crumbling conglomerate with their feeble hoes and axes, and have thus 

 enlarged and shaped the interior of many a cavern to suit their re- 

 quirements. 



45. ..MASABA VU.LAGE, MOUNT ELGON 



I The interior of these caves is blocked up in some cases by houses very 

 like the dwellings of the cattle-kee}»ing Masai, made of sticks and leaves 

 over which a framework of cow-dung and clav has been plastered. The 

 ceiling is, of course, the sloi)ing roof of rock, k^ome of these dwellings 

 are or have been used for the housing of cattle, shee]), and goats ; others 

 for human beings. The floor of the caves is several feet thick in the 

 hardened excrement of cattle, besides refuse and rubbish thrown down by 

 human beings. The caves so swarm with fleas, and are so noisome from 

 the atrocious stench arising from this ancient manure, that any extensive 

 examination of them was intolerable. I should think, however, that some 

 person with more time and patience at his command than myself on this 



